Police in North Wales are road-testing a new offence: it's called "failing to make a police officer happy".
That, at least, is the conclusion that some viewers might draw from a recording posted earlier this week by biker mag, Motorcycle News (MCN). Penalties for not satisfying the copper contentment quota include possible …

Could be as bad as Strahclyde's finest.

When I was about 20, I drove a V6 Vectra. It looked the part (well as good as a Vectra can) and could shift, if it really needed to.

Every Saturday morning for four weeks I got stopped on my way to work (at about 5:30am). Once they claimed it was a spot check and kicked my tyres and stuff, once they thought I was going a bit fast off a roundabout and wished to impart some advice (Roundabout was very big and had a 70mph limit on it, and i was below that), and twice I was breathalised (with a negative result, had been days since my last drink). The reason they gave for breathalising me was that i was driving with the window open on a cold november morning.

I complained to the boys in blue in writing, threatening them with legal action for their obvious profiling (young male, powerful car, early morning) and was never stopped again. Well, not in that car anyway.

Firearms for what ?

homeoffice circular

that posted circular is interesting reading.. thanks for that.

- this sentence: "It is a statutory defence for a person to prove that they had a reasonable excuse for eliciting, publishing or communicating the relevant information." suggests what? guilty until proven innocent? that's what it looks like to me.

- "A police officer can only stop and search a person they reasonably suspect to be a terrorist under this power.".. i need to ask, what exactly constitutes 'reasonable suspicion' that someone 'may be' a terrorist? shifty eyes? too tall or perhaps too ugly? (yes, it's happened before) looks at police officers? what exactly? please do clarify this if you can.

- "Officers do not have the power to delete images or destroy film.".. so how come i've heard and read of so many incidences where police officers have instructed people to delete images? is this not illegal?

If you lived in Wales...

Whereas I do have some sympathy for Welsh Plod (if you lived in Wales wouldn't you hold a grudge against the rest of the world too?) I have zero sympathy for bikers.

My experience is of endless traffic violations by bikers, usually a combination of lack of consideration for any other road users combined with complete disregard for speed restrictions. The number of biker fatalities provides ample supporting evidence. Bikers are one per cent of road users but account for 20 per cent of fatalities on UK roads. Yes I know the bikers blame other motorists for those statistics but where's the supporting evidence? Surley it makes sense for Police to do their best to help reduce road deaths and to focus their efforts on the 1% highest risk. You might just as well complain about Police discriminating against drink-drivers who might argue: Why single ME out just because I've had a few? I can drive perfectly well with a few pints on board. - Well, because we know that before the breathalyser road fatalities after which one of the motorists involved was found to have a high concentration of alcohol in his blood were much higher. Just as it makes sense for police to be particularly active with breathalysers around closing time near popular out-of-town pubs on Friday nights so it makes sense to take a hightened interest in bikers when there are more around because they are far more likely to be involved in collisions.

I was grumbling to aimiable local plod about how a biker who overtook me on the inside when I was doing 70 ("well I might have just edged very slightly above while overtaking, Officer") in the outside lane of the motorway had gaven a hand signal which I interpreted as registering his disapprobation at my not changing lanes for his convenience. Friendly plod then explained that bikes accelerate faster than cars (not sure why this means it's OK for them to consistently travel very significantly faster than the speed limit) and told me how he'd got his bike up to 115 the previous weekend. I said I didn't know he'd been visiting a country with a higher limit than UK. He grinned and said 2 wheels are safer than 4 (which seems to be at variance with the statistical evidence).

@ AC 12.06

No wonder there are fatalities with muppets like you on the road. I'm surprised you even noticed the bike, many many car, van, bus and lorry drivers don't bother to look.

So no wonder when I see "Biker killed after colliding with car" I read it normally as "driver pulled out of junction in front of biker" or "spiteful motorist swipes biker off road" or "wanker in an Audi driving down the middle of the road murders biker through crap driving"

For the record I drive cars too, just sick of the generally shite driving I see more and more of, including "drive down the centre of the road to protect those ever so shiny alloy wheels" or "drive on the wrong side of the road on a blind bend"

Yes some bikers are tossers (the local car bodyshop owner being a severe arsehole...then again his driving is consistently awful and reckless....I pity anyone who leaves anything in his care) but most are well aware of their vulnerability and take appropriate steps - lifesaver checks, lights on etc

Oh and filtering through traffic is legal so to all the small dicked car drivers out there, stop acting like a tosser by trying to block filtering bikers....its bloody annoying, not to mention bloody reckless, and it may inspire certain bikers to interface your door mirrors with a boot